The Chiron Chronicle: Discussions 2 - Page 6

Natan · June 27, 2001, 11:40

Well, I would be willing to write some things for the Believers if no one else can, but maybe we should get someone to actually run their affairs?

I think we should have a discussion of what warfare on Planet is like, so that we're on the same page both in terms of battle resolution and story writing. Also, it might be fun and interesting in its own right. Anyone interested? If so, just post away.

DarkCloud · June 27, 2001, 12:11

...Sounds good... Natan you may run the Believers
...Warfare on the planet? I think tank warfare and armored would be much the same as on earth. But for infantry and mindworm, perhaps we should agree on some basic rules for those war types.

I'm not an expert on war, but here is my idea.
Mindworms are stealthy and sneak up and grab onto people they war against.

In the early days (before atmosphere), if the air bubbles above the soldiers are breached, they die of asyphixation.

Any other ideas?

--

When I get caught up, I will have the Perfect Society and University experience tensions.

Daniel Jakhobs-Howell will trouble the new University Government as he realizes his true history (but the cyborgs will still have minimal control over him due to an embedded chip.)

The Planet Health Service will become an underground organization and fight the Anarchists (Jakhobs-Howell) in a war of words, but the Anarchists will attack them, the University will ban them.

Zakharov will make political machinations... and eventually discover the Perfect Society's true goal.

The leader *may* resign.

War may occur with the new Perfect Society leaders in Morganite territory. The university will be supported by morgan, and there will be general civil war.

Guardian · June 28, 2001, 04:18

U.N. News Network

Today's headline: Guardian going on holiday!

Reliable sources in U.N. Headquarters indicate that Guardian will be out of town for about a month from today. The Peacekeepers are not expected to get involved in anything big during this time, although some minor action can not be ruled out. Guardian refused to comment the matter any further, but indicated that something big would be in store for his return...

Natan · June 28, 2001, 16:53

My analysis of warfare on Planet:

I think I should start by discussing general economic and political aspects. Since all factions have more or less self contained economies, with no need to gain natural resources from others, direct economic factors such as the desire for more land will have little impact on wars. More subtle considerations, such as protecting trade partners, defending the rights of movement on the seas, raiding enemies for plunder, or forcing trade relationships on other factions may, however, be a factor. The min factor however, I think, will be the desire of almost all factions to make their own ideology supreme, or at the very least, to maintain their situation against other factions wishing to do the former. Therefore, wars are likely to be extremely brutal and destructive, with very little respect for human life or economic resources.

Now for land warfare: I think that planet's geography will make warfare on it very different from warfare on earth. The basic fact of planet's geography is that there is a great amount of open space with a few patches of artificial forest and a number of almost impassable fungal blooms and rocky areas. Tanks and aircraft will be extremely effective in the open areas, but infantry carefully placed in "impassable" terrain will be able to beat them easily. Therefore, wise faction leaders will continue the already prevelant practice of erecting large defensive lines on their borders to stop the rovers. Thus, warfare will be characterized by slow, grueling attempts to break enemy lines, which, if successful, will be followed by vast sweeping maneuvers by rovers over open ground. The only way around this is an amphibious landing. Many will surely be attempted, and this may lead some faction leaders to develop defenses against it, consisting of air patrols, coastal artillery, and fleets of small fast craft capable of destroying larger vessels or smaller landing craft. These arrangements would probably be cheaper than a large ocean going Navy.

Some other things:

Unarmored rovers would not be literally unable to defend themselves if a large unit of them were attacked by another large unit. They would however, be at a serious disadvantage in several kinds of combat. Specifically, they would be vulnerable in any prolonged engagement against an enemy with heavy mobile firepower in the form of aircraft, artillery, other rovers, or even infantry if the engagement occured in a difficult terrain. Due to their greater spead, unarmored rovers would have the advantage though when attacking infantry in the open, in any situation when they have the benefit of surprise, or when engaging in operations where mobility is the most needed element of battle. But these situations are much rarer than the ones in which armored rovers can perform best.

Special operations: Special operations are likely to be very common on planet. Defense forces may spend much of their time trying to guard against infiltrators.

Artillery: Artillery will mostly be used to break defensive lines and fortified bases. It may also be used to defend against incoming ships.

So what does everyone else think? How far off base am I?

Cyber · June 29, 2001, 06:49

Ahh! Finally back... d*mn, that vacation did good. Sorry for leaving without a notice, but as I don´t have much part of the story now, it didn´t matter.

Natan, your description about the warfare on Chiron is, I must say, quite good and accurate.
Except for one thing. The part about defensive lines, and the slow battles for breaching those lines. The first defensive line erected on planet was on the Hive-Drone border, mainly to stop the then mostly raids and small attacks. But no defense lines, even the 10000 km miracle "chinese wall" erected by the peacekeepers, can stand a full-scale blitzkrieg assault. So, although Spartans did erect defense lines, in my opinion they never turned them so solid, meaning they inversted into mobility and detection of the enemy rather than to hundreds of concrete bunkers, not wanting to make the same mistake like so many Allied countries at the beginning of WW2. I hope Sprayber will continue the same line.

Also, just think how much a defensive line eg. the size and scale of the peacekeeper mammoth wall, would cost in support. My god!
If one square has lets say, 6-7 bunkers, and each bunker has somewhere about 500 soldiers, one square needs 3000-3500 soldiers. multiply that by ten, and you get 30000-35000 soldiers! Not a pretty number considering the factions current infrastructure, and thats just the soldiers. If you count the huge heaps of equipment and supplies needed to support one heavy gatling infantry soldier and multiply that by 35000, you´ll get wild numbers

Not to mention the huge time scale and dedication needed to build that kind of defensive line, finally to be breached from two place

, and almost from a third. That means only three squares saw any action, and the rest weren´t needed at all.

June 29, 2001, 12:19

OKay, about warfare and before Cyber exagerates. Wars on Chiron, especially with the wonders of Missile Technology now, as become a total carnage. The Peacekeeper/Spartan war was the most devastating compare to the rest on chiron...also about the first war where Missile Weaponry was effectively used. Because of Missile Weaponry, Artillery is more effective as it does more damage and bit better accuracy.

I have just almost completed reading Centauri Dawn. The battles in there is i think perfect example...of course, in 2180s with Missile Technology with way bigger military, it is 10 to 20 times bigger than ones described in the book. Anyway, the description of how they used rovers and infantry in the book is good example to base this games warfare on, including Natan's simulations.

We shouldn't take example of the PK/Spartan war as it is two big armies that practicly annihilated each other from the ghetto and the defence lines experience its first war. So i am sure the PKs would improve the defence line from now on.....

Bunkers are not easy to destroy by artillery....as they are BUNKERS! thats what they are designed for, to protect from artillery and ground fire....and in chiron, to sort of block the Rovers too. Cyber's description of the PK Defence Line is a bit silly, ain't a long chinese wall. Just a series of Bunkers across a long stretch of territory defended by Gatling Infantry Units with ECM. And they don't get easily destroyed by Rovers firepower either, unless they succeeded in clearing the infantry out of the bunkers, which requires infantry to do so, not rovers, and than spend time to destroy a bunker, which ain't done in a day or few hours. Blitzkrieg will not always be effective, especially now. Battles don't always last in few hours and or a day, they can take weeks, especially batteling through defensive positions and trying to conquer a properly defended base. The Cult of War troops succeeded in capturing one bunker of a cluster in one square, but had more trouble after that, batteling Bunker command style, Infantry vs Infantry (with some PK artillery too). I may end up describing the various styles of combat i know off, could possibly think of and base on types of battles in some sci-fi books and some RTS games.

A typical Rover Unit is probebly comprised of 75 to 150 rovers, about a crew of 3-5 each. Rovers are big giant vehicules just to say, like we seem to make it...more like the size which Centauri Dawn is giving the impression. Also, Rovers are a lot more mobile than Earth Tanks, else, i am sure the factions would of stuck building tanks instead. Even now on earth, US Military realize that they need a fast resonse mobile force and currently developing various ATVs and APCs type vehicules, and easy to ship quickly wherever in the world unlike the Abram Tanks. I read many sci-fi stuff where they mention using ATVs or/and rover like military vehicules for war. Mobility is a big thing, especially in chiron terrain. but in some terrain and places, they are not so effective like where infantry can easily overwhelm them. Rovers also require more resources than a typecal Infantry Unit.

Infantry Units is still important and they can still create trouble for rovers and so on. They are also easy to make and train. Hive at the moment makes the best of use of infantry, Doctrine and style wise in my opinion :P Where Spartans focus more into Rover Combat.

Air Force saw some action in the past war, but haven't 100% effectively been use. In time, Air will definatly be a serious factor on Chiron. especially now where most factions are rally starting to build up their air forces.

Practicly all of the Factions units are base on the original Unity designs, which is why i would think Rovers of both factions almost look completly alike.

anyway, will later make a list of various military combat styles, doctrines and so on.

June 29, 2001, 12:27

The size of a typecal unit of any type would vary per faction, but we need a standard thought atleast. The PK/Spartan war develop many arguments and unreallistics stuff.

Rover Unit: Rover Regiment of about 75-150 rovers, or smaller
so with about a crew of 3-5 per rover, thats about 225-750 people.
Infantry unit: Infantry Regiment of about 500-1000 troops, or smaller
Air Unit: Needlejet Wing of about 36-45 aircrafts
Naval Unit: One ship

Units don't always have to operate in a regiment/wing, they can be splitted in into Battalions, Plattoons, Squads/Flights, Squadrons and so on.

Natan · June 29, 2001, 15:29

That's good [LordLMP], but I think infantry regiment should have about ten times as many people. Since I assume that we're talking about foot-infantry, they would need many more people to defend or attack on the same size line or with the same force as a much more mobile rover regiment. Also, factions who are more interested in getting cheap firepower than keeping their people alive, who are the main users of infantry, would organize them in large units for human rwave assaults on fortified areas, or as shock troops to absorb the brunt of an enemy force. So I think an infantry unit should be 3,000-10,000 men.

As for bunkers, I think that they would bristle with sensors and installed gun positions. The only way to beat them, imho, would be to use sensor disruptors (chaff, flares, smoke shells) combined with a thick barrage, preferably containing nerve gas, to let the attacker's troops get in close and use flamethrowers on the bunkers. Even with these measures, enemy sensors and guns might still function, and a first wave of cannon fodder (infantry) might be necessary to screen for the main attack force.

I'm wondering if we could have APCs and IFVs, and how they would work.

Darkcloud: I was just kidding you.

Desert Journeyman · June 29, 2001, 19:50

I've been leafing through many of the SMAX discussions for quite some time now, and invariably, they catch my attention. Not only is the writing an example of high quality, but the storylines are also dynamic and excellent. They appeal to me far more than the standard "kill-the-other-guy" scenarios in which players tend to get at eachother more than they do the game.

If there's room, I'd like to join. And if possible, I'd like to introduce my own faction. Is this acceptable?

Sprayber · June 29, 2001, 19:58

Your welcome to join as far as I'm concerned and I don't think the other would have any problems with it. As far as your own custom faction, that would be up to the others. It would be difficult to start one up. What do you have in mind?

Desert Journeyman · June 29, 2001, 20:06

Well, actually, I'm afraid I'd need a quick summary or five-sentence overview of the story. I have a few ideas that I could embellish into full-fledged factions with relative ease - so long as I know the plot-line.

June 30, 2001, 01:20

Desert: There is always room in Chiron Chronicles... As for a full fledge custom faction isn't exactly possible, but can be a sub-faction of one of the 7 originals or 5 crossfire ones. May eventually evolve into a new complete faction, who knows

but cannot simply go poof, theres a new faction.

as for an overview, someone can do it or I when i can tommorrow after work. right now i just got back from and late at night, so i am tired

can go through the the last few game threads.

Natan:

10 000 may make sence earth wise.... but in Chiron Chronicles, the world population of chiron is about quarter to half a billion.
Hive may be able to support such large infantry units, but doubt it will be to support dozen of them or more, else putting a huge dent in your factions population. Like Cyber pointed out, to have a large military would put a dent in the faction's bases population level. Maybe in the future of Chiron Chronicles factions can support bunch of 10k infantry units, but a 1000-5000 infantry regiment is bit more realistic. if you want to overwhelm, jus have multiple infantry units to combine and assault together.

Desert Journeyman · June 30, 2001, 08:06

Actually, my idea was for a sort of military contengient to form, independant of either the Spartans or the Hive.

The storyline assumes that a scattering of regular combat soldiers were aboard the Unity - imbued with special genetic materials and neural stapling - and that the descendants of these origional units remain. At some point, they will begin to break from the Spartans and Hive in large numbers. For now, they're simply likely to be distributed into elite or special units within those two factions.

DarkCloud · June 30, 2001, 12:17

Hello again Desert- I remember your last proposal.

You may join, but you are probably going to have to take over a 'real' faction and 'convert' it into the one you want... or start out as a Real Faction leader, then have a bit of the faction break off.

Here is a recent overview of Page 1 of the Current Chronicles posts:

2183

January

-Svensgaard writes to Roze that the Chiron Alliance does not need help to attack the Spartans (LL)

-General Kessel of the Spartans implores Chairman Yang of the Hive to ally against the Chiron Alliance (Consisting of Peacekeepers, Pirates, Free Drones, Data Angels, Cyborgs) (SP)
-General Kessel implores Priest Breinmann of the Cult of War that they should not violate the general Spartan war orders, and should declare peace with others and follow the Spartan governing authority (SP)

-The Cult of War announces they are only a religion, and part of the Spartans (CY)

-Commissioner Lal of the Peacekeepers feels betrayed by the world because he does not receive a response from Planetmind and only the Data Angels sided with them in the vote (GU)

-Yang sends 81 Hive personnel to Colonel Santiago of the Spartans (NA)
-Yang fortifies the border between his empire and the Free Drones (NA)
-Yang begins work on the Human Genome Project (NA)
-Yang implores Aki Zeta-Five of the Cyborgs for an exchange of ambassadors (NA)

-Lal asks Planetmind for help (GU)
-Lal accuses General Kessel of faking a video showing Peacekeeping forces exacting vengeance on Spartans (GU)
-Poulos killes General Halzburg, leader of the Spartan revolt (SP)

-Sir Cloud of The Perfect Society implores the Data Angels and Cyborgs for materials and support (DC)
-Daniel Jakhobs-Howell of the Perfect Society rescued from the Cyborgs by Neil Duncan-Howell (DC)
-The D-Citz, supporters of Daniel Jakhobs-Howell attack a Cyborg café (DC)
-The Perfect Society conspires to depose CEO Morgan of the Morganites (DC)
-Morgan pleads for regulation of industries, namely The Perfect Society's monopolies (DC)

-----
At this point in the story the Perfect Society has taken over the University, but Zakharov protests. The Perfect Society (a political group) is attempting to take over Morgan, but the Free Trade Summit will soon foil their plans when all other factions can invest in the Morgan Stock Exchange (MSE)

The University is in a mess right now and not ready for a war (they have the troops but morale is low because Zakharov isn't leading)

Morganites are in disarray as Morgan wants to regulate the stock market.

---
Spartans have a religious movement, the Cult of War (cyber can tell you more about that if you need)

The Pirates, Peacekeepers, Data Angels, Free Drones, Cyborgs are allied in The Chiron Alliance and have just made peace with the Spartans. The alliance threatens to break up.
---
Good luck if you join.

Desert Journeyman · June 30, 2001, 12:46

I assume this is primarily story-motivated, and therefore, I shouldn't expect to be fighting for my life at every turn - correct?

Also - where would a new faction concievably fit in? It is feasible, or for that matter permissable, that I could have one of two of my characters commandeer a splinter group from the Hive? I find it highly probable that my proposed faction - that is, one composed entirely of the Unity regulars and combat troops - were likely willing to stand by Yang, the Unity XO, during the disaster of planetfall, and have remained since then.

A final question concerning technology:

How far along are we? Have the factions continued to salvage and construct rudimentary facilities, or would the cities seen in some SMAX cutseens be more fitting?

Sprayber · June 30, 2001, 18:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Desert Journeyman
Actually, my idea was for a sort of military contengient to form, independant of either the Spartans or the Hive.

The storyline assumes that a scattering of regular combat soldiers were aboard the Unity - imbued with special genetic materials and neural stapling - and that the descendants of these origional units remain. At some point, they will begin to break from the Spartans and Hive in large numbers. For now, they're simply likely to be distributed into elite or special units within those two factions.

The followers that made up Santiago's group would have been highly dedicated to the Spartan cause. So I don't think that they would break off so easy. Saying that, I already have a storyline going about Blast Rifle Crag declaring it's indepenence from Sparta. It remains to be seen how long this situation is allowed to go on.

it seems to be that the Blast Rifle Crag story and the cult of war are all the splts the Spartans can take.

June 30, 2001, 23:01

Darkcloud, Free Drones are not part of the Chiron Alliance, just friends with the Pirates and treaties with rest of alliance. They are Neutral.

Svensgaard didn't specificly say that CA doesn't need data angel help, just that "if you don't like it, don't get involve".

Desert, you can take control of Kane's Hive, an army that left Hive and currently residing in PPk territory, part of the force surrounding Data Acquisition which the Spartans captured during the spartan war. Not much as been done with them description wise and so on, what makes them difference compare to the rest of Hive and so on.

No, you won't get attacked left and right.

Morganites
Free Drones
Gaians
Believers
Cult of Planet

these are the factions that are available to be taken over. Believers just declared war on Cult of Planet about the third time in its history and preparing for their third crusade.

to remind you all, Chiron Chronicles IS a Diplomacy type game, not divide and conquer, split, convert and extremes,

DarkCloud · July 1, 2001, 12:37

It is story motivated.

The tech level is at 3-6 right now, with some factions at either spectrum, but with most having only a few techs at level 6.

Most of the cities on Chiron are the regular earth-type, mid 20th century laid out cities, with the exception of a few crowded together "New York" like cities in the University- were congregation translates into ideas which translate into research which translate into strength.

Desert Journeyman · July 1, 2001, 13:18

I'm thinking of the Morganites.

But I would also need a background for Kane's Hive.

Anything faction suddenly appearing will likely not have a Tech Level over 3, although I do believe that since my idea involves regular military units, we'd have some upgrades and remaining Unity equipment that could rise to Tech Level 5 or 6.

Can you give a slightly more detailed description of the Tech Levels? What have the Morganites been doing all this while?

Natan · July 1, 2001, 14:36

My thoughts on the infantry discussion - my guess is that the population varies radically from faction to faction. The PKs, Pirates, Cyborgs, University and Morgan probably have rather low population growth, along with most other factions. But then a few factions, like the Hive and the Believers, would have skyrocketing growth. The extra people would probably be deployed as forced labor, put into the military, or put into military units which spend most of their time on construction duties. The Hive and the Believers would probably need these laborers and soldiers to enable them to break even with the other factions economically and militarily despite their technological backwardness. So I think that the number of soldiers in an infantry unit would vary drastically from faction to faction, because some factions might deploy soldier-laborers who could fight (albeit not as well as professional armies) while still earning their keep as laborers. I read that this actually happened in the USSR and still happens in Russia, with soldiers growing pigs on their bases and being sent out to the fields in the fall to gather in the civillian harvest.

DarkCloud · July 1, 2001, 17:39

Morgan has been having problems... The Perfect Society has been attempting to oust him as leader and eventually combine the University and the Morganites into a large Trade Conglomeration.

Morgan is quickly becoming unpopular with his people because he has tried to regulate companies which are buying up lots of shares on the stock market. They will soon be able to control the Market Economy's votes (which are based on #of stocks invested in the market) and easily oust Morgan- so he is worried.
(The people in question are the Perfect Society)

However, Morgan is approaching a possible trial in the near future. He will welcome world investment in the Morgan Stock Exchange as will outlined in the Free Trade Summit meeting as free investment will allow him to regain control over the stock market's activities.

Morgan's people don't really want the other factions to invest in their country as they can buy votes off of the stock exchange and elect who THEY want to be the Morganites leader.

Desert Journeyman · July 1, 2001, 19:52

Concerning the size of "standard" formations, I'm going to have to agree with previous speculation: depending on the faction or organization in question, deployments would vary in both their composition of supernumiaries and equipment.

Even a fairly martial society such as the Spartans would likely field some of the smaller echelons. The University, Morganites, Cyborgs, and Pirates probably mirror this. Each can afford to supply themselves - via various means - with technology capable of elevating the firepower of even a small group well above the average standards.

The Peacekeepers, Free Drones, Hive, Believers, Cult of Planet, and Gaians might supply larger formations - approaching several hundred persons in size, armed with an assortment of archaic, outdated, and even useless equipment. They fight their battles with less precision, the majority of heavy weapons being used en masse or by teams with little expertise in the field of joint combat operations.

In terms of Rovers and Speeders, this would be similar. Although seventy Rovers would be a large cadré or regiment - of the type seen as a corps. It would probably be relied upon until its numbers ebbed to the dozens before replacement was even considered as a viable option. Resources are scarce even now - I doubt mass production has gotten very far so early.

---

Also - I'd sooner take another faction than the Morganites. Unless I could redress the situation and pull some military capability out of Morgan's wealth.

Natan · July 1, 2001, 20:39

Well, I envision small workshops which could turn out weapons with interchangeable parts based on prefabricated designs using simple tools. Factory work would probably be very labor intensive, at least until the discovery of Industrial Automation. I don't think it would be that difficult to field units of thousands. The average faction has 20 million people, and even today nations with that many people can field large armies of hundreds of thousands on a regular basis without serious economic damage. Many nations have one or two, even more percentage points of their population in the military. Since the factions using larger formations are probably the ones with more people, they should be able to afford large infantry brigades of five to eight thousand troops, even accounting for the fact that most soldiers aren't in combat units.

Desert Journeyman · July 1, 2001, 20:45

I thought there were, oh, ten thousand at most on the Unity itself, and that many of those died during Planetfall or shortly after that point.

Even a nation of twenty million or so - take Venezuela for instance - can hardly prop itself up. Most of these factions are intensive in one way or another; i.e. their focus blinds the leadership to perepheral - yet vital - requirements or interests. This suggests that to mobilize anything approaching even one million citizens would be a signifigantly taxing objective and undertaking.

Even weapons with interchangable parts are difficult - especially when the process of construction shredder pistols, automatic variants of the same, rifles, and all sorts of other innovated killing machines is both time-consuming and difficult. Granted that most of those present are technicians, engineers, or scientific minds, but this is still going to be horribly fraught with challenges.

Natan · July 1, 2001, 21:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Desert Journeyman
I thought there were, oh, ten thousand at most on the Unity itself, and that many of those died during Planetfall or shortly after that point.

Even a nation of twenty million or so - take Venezuela for instance - can hardly prop itself up. Most of these factions are intensive in one way or another; i.e. their focus blinds the leadership to perepheral - yet vital - requirements or interests. This suggests that to mobilize anything approaching even one million citizens would be a signifigantly taxing objective and undertaking.

Even weapons with interchangable parts are difficult - especially when the process of construction shredder pistols, automatic variants of the same, rifles, and all sorts of other innovated killing machines is both time-consuming and difficult. Granted that most of those present are technicians, engineers, or scientific minds, but this is still going to be horribly fraught with challenges.

Could you please clarify what you said in your second paragraph?

LordLMP said that there were between one quarter and one half of a billion people on Planet. I would assume that those sent on the Unity were chosen for their technical skills. Producing weapons with interchangeable parts shouldn't be too difficult, the technology to do so is over 200 years old. All it requires is the sort of basic tools you and I could probably get access to with ease if we so desired.

By the way, this is a great discussion.

Desert Journeyman · July 1, 2001, 21:23

The origional Unity crew salvaged or produced by hand, most of their armament and any complimentary weaponary. This process was likely both time-consuming and rather difficult, when despite being composed of engineers, technical specialists, and scientific advisors, the majority of the colonists are likely to be utilizing these specialities in far more mundane tasks: habitation module construction, genetic agriculture, and even to a very great extent: organization, exploration, and repair.

I always found it odd that no "security" contengient existed other than personnel intended for minor base detail. It seems unlikely that the Unity would be sent into the unknown without a small, if dedicated, corps of heavy-armed regular combat soldiers. Although the Spartan lifestyle might be appealing, I could see the vast majority remaining in service under Shen-Ji Yang, the vessel's former XO.

Weapons of all types are utilized by the Unity settlements. From shredder pistols to gravimetric charges. This suggests that a variety of methods for the production of munitions, dedicated repair, and modification do exist. Again, that would be a major undertaking because of the sheer number or scale of the factory components required.

Natan · July 1, 2001, 21:40

How much factory space this requires depends on how you do it. It's a fairly simple process to get the raw materials out of the ground, particularly with Industrial automation. It's also fairly easy to assemble the raw materials into a usable form, just melt the metals and pour them into a mold. It would be possible to make an automatic projectile weapon in a small machine shop with a few metal working tools, once the metals had been poured into the basic shapes at the steel mill. My guess is that the Unity would have carried a lot of equipment of this sort with it, and although a lot would have been damaged, I would guess that a lot survived. If the colonists are able to maintain large naval and air forces, I don't see why they can't maintain good sized land forces either. Almost all of the land on Chiron has been claimed and settled by now, so colonization itself isn't taking up industrial production.

Also, I think that the professional soldiers would have left along with Kane. In case you don't know, his forces left the Hive after I broke a deal with the peacekeepers and declared war on them. Kane's troops, about a third of those in the southern region, fled to PK territory, where they remain to this day. Kane left with those elements of the army which were more loyal to him and the military then to Yang, which would, I presume, be the original military units included in the Unity expedition.

Desert Journeyman · July 1, 2001, 21:47

My father owns a large factory of sorts; an industrial steel mill. As a child, I always used to ask him if he could fashion firearms or anything of that sort. While my father does entertain numerous government contracts, the answer is consistently: "No." Realize that in the United States of America today, only one factory, that being Lima Railway Works of Ohio, can build Main Battle Tanks of the designs specified by the United States Army.

Because moulds and equipment are on hand does not necessarily indicate that any sort of capability to produce firearms exists. It is similarly important to remember that much of Chiron still likely exists in a near-feudal setting; that is to say, nearly all of what infrastructure does exist does so in cities, isolated from the faction's territories at large.

The Hive did not have access to advanced military applications, which I do find odd, because a contengint from Earth's own regular armies - which I do admit would be nearly impossible to scrape togeather - would have technology left over from the crash that even today is superior to that of nearly all of the factions.

Natan · July 1, 2001, 22:19

The Vietnamese Communists, the IRA, the PLO, etc. have all been able to make their own weapons in factories which had to be hidden and operated with poor equipment. Surely the factions of Chiron could make infantry weapons cheaply, although I agree that rovers would be very difficult to manufacture. Still though, eighty years is a long time, and it's possible to build up real infrastructure from scratch in that time. There are parts of the world which had virtually no Industry eighty years ago but which are now industrial powerhouses. If the factions of Chiron are able to produce aircraft in substantial numbers, then I presume they can mass-produce infantry weapons. Cheap infantry weapons can be made even in poor conditions with bad equipment, because they are very simple. The Sten gun, for example, was mass produced in Britain during WWII by utilizing various products which had previously had civillian uses, like bicycle parts. It was a sturdy and reliable sub-machine gun which cost next to nothing to make. The technology required to make these sort of firearms is very simple - all you need is a metal tube, some springs, and a few simple machine tools to drill a few parts correctly. Once made, the product can remain just as effective for a century or two if given the most basic care. If the colonists don't have access to these tools, I find it hard to believe that they can build cities, agricultural equipment, or even their own pressure helmets and purification systems for the water and air. Rovers, on the other hand, would be more expensive, since they require complex and powerful engines, larger guns, a constant supply of fuel, and if they are to be of any use, they need complex gun-sighting systems, armor, and many spare parts. Aircraft and ships would be a nightmare to construct. These could probably only be provided in smaller numbers, but they would be much more effective then infantry.

Desert Journeyman · July 1, 2001, 22:54

My arguments are geared to twenty years of colonization. It is a general given that after eighty, sufficient progress has been made that essentially permits high levels of industrial automation.

However, do recall that where some nations progress in eighty years, most of those were already in existance as semi-modern entities. No civilization exists on Chiron. It would require at least twenty years to settle without industry being on hand in any appreciable quantity.